1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the making of prints from negatives and, more particularly, to the reprinting of particular negatives from a plurality of film strip portions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When prints are first made from developed rolls of film, they are most easily handled as a long continuous film strip. After printing, the long film strips are typically cut into film strip portions of two to three negatives each for ease of handling.
When a customer desires a number of additional prints from that roll of film, it becomes a laborious task to handle a number of relatively small film strip portions and to determine the correct negative number and the number and size of prints desired for that customer. To alleviate this problem, a number of techniques have been proposed including splicing a plurality of the film strip portions together to form a continuous film strip. But this technique presents the additional problem of separating individual customer negatives and there is still the problem of identifying the correct negatives for reprinting. Another proposed technique is to affix film strip portions for a single customer to a transparent acetate strip with separations between customers' negatives and including on the acetate strip printing information identifying negatives and the number and size of prints desired. This technique, however, has the disadvantage of perhaps introducing dirt and other foreign particles between the negative and the acetate which are difficult to remove.
Examples of the prior art relating to splicing techniques are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,171,259; 2,940,884 and 3,959,048. There has been a need in the field of reprinting from film strip portions for a technique which would permit the use of continuous film strip and which would also provide printing information for the negatives to be reprinted. The present invention satisfies that need.